


Exception

by Queenjoker



Category: Magisterium Series - Holly Black & Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, I guess???, Platonic Relationships, Set after the Bronze key and when call has already escaped jail, and kind of implied calron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 05:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10353345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queenjoker/pseuds/Queenjoker
Summary: It's not something that either Call or Tamara notices until after Aaron's gone.In which it's the tiniest things that makes things so much more obvious and painful, and Call and Tamara are both just /trying./





	

**Author's Note:**

> Wheezes sorry, this is my first time writing them and I suck at dialogue and sad settings in general.  
> But i really wanted to write it out. Maybe I'll write it in Call's POV another time.

It’s subtle, at first. But it’s the kind of subtle that crashes the whole world around you once you figure it out. Tamara sees it from the side, something small, minor. Something anyone else would have put under as “Nothing to note” in their minds. That’s not Tamara Rajavi, however, so she notices. She takes everything to note about Call.

            At first, it is a simple stumble from leaning to empty air. With Call, stumbling was something people have grown to expect and accept. He’s a stubborn child that would bite his own tongue first before even considering accepting anyone’s help. (Anyone’s, that is, but one person’s.) They’ve grown used to just looking over any similar incidents.

            He corrects himself, quick to bark something back to Jasper in their argument, as if nothing happened.

            The next time it happens—a simple lift of his hand, a habit formed from the constant insistence from Aaron to offer help—it takes him a beat longer to compose himself back. The conversation doesn’t need him to reply so he stares a bit longer at the space beside him. People have grown to giving him that space. Out of fear or respect, neither one of them could figure it out but Call takes it anyways because _God_ , does he need it. Or at least that’s what he tells Tamara anyways when she points it out to him one day. She wants to disagree, because he’s always been alone through everything from day 1 and she’ll be damned if she makes that record last any longer, but his eyes are so distant, so _tired_ , that she lets him have that extra space.

            For now, she tells herself. A battle lost, but a war still raging.

            The third time, Tamara couldn’t help but stare, and he caught sight of it. After an awkward shuffling, he’s back to standing up, leaning on the other leg like normal. He forces a smile, a nod, and trudges on ahead of her and she lets him.

            The fourth time it happens, he is bumped by a stranger on the road. They were in a new town, trying to find a place to sleep in. Just the three of them plus one wolf. It’s a familiar setting in a way, so it was hard for both of them. For Tamara to watch Call jump at the touch of the shoulders, looking so expectantly beside him, waiting to hear the familiar “Hey” from their friend. Instead the stranger apologizes, giving their group a quizzical look before hurrying away. Call wasn’t listening anymore, wasn’t there, Tamara could tell, so she tugged him along the rest of the way.

            The fifth time she catches him, on instinct. It was an accident but the look on his face was brutal on her. He looked embarrassed, ashamed, and most of all, _betrayed_. He takes back his arm as if she burned him with magic.

_How could you_ , his face said, _I thought you of all people would know._

           Tamara does know, and has known for a very long time.

           She knows that Aaron was the exception that Call himself seemed to have never noticed. The one that he grew to lean on without meaning to. She’s known it since even before entering their Copper Year when she caught them bumping shoulders. She _knows_.

           Call walks ahead before she could say anything and avoids her the rest of the day as much as one could when you’re a part of a small group collectively trying to cross states on an adventure.

           He manages to keep it up until the third day. On that third day, Jasper is whining to both of them to make up because he can’t handle the awkward tensions in their walks anymore. “I’m starting to talk to Havoc more than I do with either one of you two! The _wolf_ , Tamara, I’m talking to the _wolf_ more!” Havoc lets out a whine in the back, a similar tone to Jasper’s.

           They meet up by the trees, comforted somewhat by the shadows its gives them. Jasper leaves them to have their talk, for once knowing he’s in the right for bringing something up in their group. Call looks at anywhere but at her, and she has a flashback to their Iron Year when no one was angry at anyone at all. A huge misunderstanding. She doesn’t think that’s how this one will go.

            They sit there in the dark for a long time.

            “I—,” she starts.

_I’m sorry._

_It’s my fault._

_I’m trying._

_I’m here too._

_I’m hurting too._

            She can’t meet his stare, finding it hard choose anything.

            Instead, she feels his leg bump hers and she looks up to see him raising a hand, a small smile on his face. It’s been days since she last saw something that genuine on his face, and she thinks she has something similar on her own face. She opens her mouth to finally say something, when all of a sudden:

            “Havoc, NO! These shoes are _designers!”_

They look at each other, seconds passing at the shout heard from a distance, before falling into fits of laughter. They hear Jasper giving chase and can only imagine him trying to race the chaos-ridden wolf with a designer shoe in their mouth.  

            The laughter ebbs away and before they can lapse back to silence, this time it’s Tamara that offers her hand. Call stares at it only for a second before reaching for it and they help each other stand up.

            “Ready to go?” she asks, looking straight at him, testing grounds.

            He gives her a mischievous smile. It doesn’t meet all the way to his eyes but it’s a start, she thinks.

           “Can’t we wait till Havoc takes his other shoe?”


End file.
